Build Quality

Overall build quality is solid. There is no rattle when shaking the mouse. When applying lateral pressure, minor creaking but no flexing of the shell can be observed. Activating the side buttons by squeezing the sides is possible but requires excessive force. Lastly, accidental clicks when slamming down the mouse do not occur.

Buttons

Main buttons on the Clutch GM31 Lightweight are good. Pre-travel is low, but post-travel is high, resulting in a firm and fairly snappy button response nonetheless. On both buttons, but more so on the left one, lateral button movement is noticeable. Button stiffness is light. A pair of Omron D2FC-F-K (60 M) (China) switches are used here.


Side buttons are very good. Post-travel is minimal on either button, but pre-travel higher on the back button, whose actuation point isn't even, either. Button response is pleasing all the same. Button size and placement are quite good, as actuation is possible rather easily by rolling one's thumb across. A set of Huano switches (blue plunger) is used for these.

At the bottom of the mouse is a button for cycling through the set CPI levels, which works just fine. A seemingly unbranded tactile switch is used for this one.

Scroll Wheel

The scroll wheel is very good. Noise levels are kept to an absolute minimum, and tactility is above average, providing decently separated steps and controlled scrolling. The encoder comes from CF (black) and has a height of 12 mm. The middle (scroll wheel) click requires very high force for actuation. An elevated switch from Huano (green plunger) is used for this one.

Surface

The Clutch GM31 Lightweight has a smooth matte surface at the top and textured pattern on the sides. Grip is fine, and neither surface attracts fingerprints or dirt too much. They are fairly easy to clean, and there are no signs of wear left after doing so. All in all, very good materials.

Button Sound Test

Disassembly

Disassembling the Clutch GM31 Lightweight is easy. First, all skates except the sensor ring need to be removed, along with the screws beneath them. The top and bottom shell are readily separated then.

The GM31 shares its tooling with the GM31 Wireless, which limits the efficiency of the design. The side buttons sit on their own PCB slotted into the top shell and connected through a 3-pin connector with the main PCB. The side-button PCB is stabilized further by a plastic assembly screwed into the top shell, which acts as the battery holder on the GM31 Wireless. The main PCB is needlessly large and moderately thick, yet only two screws at the rear are used to affix it to the bottom. The MCU is a Holtek HT32F52352, whose datasheet can be found here. The production date of the side-button PCB is the 39th week of 2021.


As for the soldering and general quality of the PCB, I'm unable to find any noteworthy flaws. That said, there is some unidentifiable gunk around the solder joints of the side-button PCB.